Editing Begging the question (section)

== History ==
[[File:Aristotle Altemps Inv8575.jpg|thumb|upright|Bust of [[Aristotle]], whose ''[[Prior Analytics]]'' contained an early discussion of this fallacy]]

The original phrase used by [[Aristotle]] from which ''begging the question'' descends is {{lang|grc|τὸ ἐξ ἀρχῆς αἰτεῖν}}, or sometimes {{lang|grc|ἐν ἀρχῇ αἰτεῖν}}, {{gloss|asking for the initial thing}}. Aristotle's intended meaning is closely tied to the type of [[dialectic]]al argument he discusses in his ''[[Topics (Aristotle)|Topics]]'', book VIII: a formalized debate in which the defending party asserts a thesis that the attacking party must attempt to refute by asking yes-or-no questions and deducing some inconsistency between the responses and the original thesis.

In this stylized form of debate, the proposition that the answerer undertakes to defend is called {{gloss|the initial thing}} ({{langx|grc|τὸ ἐξ ἀρχῆς, τὸ ἐν ἀρχῇ}}) and one of the rules of the debate is that the questioner cannot simply ask (beg) for it {{Clarify|date=March 2024}} (that would be trivial and uninteresting). Aristotle discusses this in ''[[Sophistical Refutations]]'' and in ''[[Prior Analytics]]'' book II, (64b, 34–65a 9, for circular reasoning see 57b, 18–59b, 1).

The stylized dialectical exchanges Aristotle discusses in the ''Topics'' included rules for scoring the debate, and one important issue was precisely the matter of ''asking for the initial thing''—which included not just making the actual thesis adopted by the answerer into a question, but also making a question out of a sentence that was too close to that thesis (for example, ''[[Prior Analytics|PA]]'' II 16).

The term was translated into English from [[Latin]] in the 16th century. The Latin version, {{lang|la|petitio principii}} {{gloss|asking for the starting point}}, can be interpreted in different ways. {{lang|la|Petitio}} (from {{lang|la|peto}}), in the [[Postclassical Era|post-classical]] context in which the phrase arose, means {{gloss|assuming}} or {{gloss|postulating}}, but in the older classical sense means {{gloss|petition}}, {{gloss|request}} or {{gloss|beseeching}}.<ref name="Liberman">{{cite web|last=Liberman|first=Mark|title='Begging the question': we have answers|url=http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2290|work=Language Log|access-date=12 January 2012|author-link=Mark Liberman|date=29 April 2010}}</ref><ref name="Kretzmann1988">{{cite book |first1=N. |last1=Kretzmann |first2=E. |last2=Stump |year=1988 |title=Logic and the Philosophy of Language |series=The Cambridge Translations of Medieval Philosophical Texts |volume=1 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0521280631 |lccn=87030542 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oh-vE6T_WIcC&pg=PA374 |page=374 |quote=One sort of {{lang|la|petitio}} is common, and another is dialectical; but common {{lang|la|petitio}} is not relevant here. A dialectical {{lang|la|petitio}} is an expression that insists that in the disputation some act must be performed with regard to the statable thing [at issue]. For example, "I require ({{lang|la|peto}}) you to respond affirmatively to 'God exists,{{'"}} and the like. And {{lang|la|petitio}} obligates [the respondent] to perform an action with regard to the {{lang|la|obligatum}}, while {{lang|la|positio}} obligates [him] only to maintain [the {{lang|la|obligatum}}]; and in this way {{lang|la|petitio}} and {{lang|la|positio}} differ.}}</ref> {{lang|la|Principii}}, [[genitive case|genitive]] of {{lang|la|principium}}, means {{gloss|beginning}}, {{gloss|basis}} or {{gloss|premise}} (of an argument). Literally {{lang|la|petitio principii}} means {{gloss|assuming the premise}} or {{gloss|assuming the original point}}.

The Latin phrase comes from the Greek {{lang|grc|τὸ ἐν ἀρχῇ αἰτεῖσθαι}} ({{lang|grc-Latn|tò en archêi aiteîsthai}} {{gloss|asking the original point}})<ref name="Schreiber2003">{{cite book |first=S.G. |last=Schreiber |year=2003 |title=Aristotle on False Reasoning: Language and the World in the Sophistical Refutations |series=SUNY Series in Ancient Greek Philosophy |publisher=State University of New York Press |isbn=978-0791456590 |lccn=2002030968 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AICfsOKXhJIC&pg=PA106 |pages=99, 106, 214 |quote=It hardly needs pointing out that such circular arguments are logically unassailable. The importance of the ''Prior Analytics'' introduction to the fallacy is that it places the error in a thoroughly epistemic context. For Aristotle, some reasoning of the form "p because p" is acceptable, namely, in cases where p is self-justifying. In other cases, the same (logical) reasoning commits the error of Begging the Question. Distinguishing self-evident from non-self-evident claims is a notorious crux in the history of philosophy. Aristotle's antidote to the subjectivism that threatens always to debilitate such decisions is his belief in a natural order of epistemic justification and the recognition that it takes special (dialectical) training to make that natural order also known to us.}}</ref> in Aristotle's ''Prior Analytics'' II xvi 64b28–65a26:

{{blockquote|Begging or assuming the point at issue consists (to take the expression in its widest sense) [in] failing to demonstrate the required proposition. But there are several other ways in which this may happen; for example, if the argument has not taken syllogistic form at all, he may argue from premises which are less known or equally unknown, or he may establish the antecedent utilizing its consequents; for demonstration proceeds from what is more certain and is prior. Now begging the question is none of these.{{nbsp}}[...] If, however, the relation of B to C is such that they are identical, or that they are clearly convertible, or that one applies to the other, then he is begging the point at issue.{{nbsp}}... [B]egging the question is proving what is not self-evidently employing itself{{nbsp}}... either because identical predicates belong to the same subject, or because the same predicate belongs to identical subjects.|Aristotle|Hugh Tredennick (trans.) ''Prior Analytics''}}

Aristotle's distinction between [[apodictic]] science and other forms of nondemonstrative knowledge rests on an [[epistemology]] and [[metaphysics]] wherein appropriate [[first principles]] become apparent to the trained dialectician:
{{blockquote|Aristotle's advice in ''[[Sophistical Refutations|S.E.]]'' 27 for resolving fallacies of Begging the Question is brief. If one realizes that one is being asked to concede the original point, one should refuse to do so, even if the point being asked is a reputable belief. On the other hand, if one fails to realize that one has conceded the point at issue and the questioner uses the concession to produce the apparent refutation, then one should turn the tables on the sophistical opponent by oneself pointing out the fallacy committed. In dialectical exchange, it is a worse mistake to be caught asking for the original point than to have inadvertently granted such a request. The answerer in such a position has failed to detect when different utterances mean the same thing. The questioner, if he did not realize he was asking the original point, has committed the same error. But if he has knowingly asked for the original point, then he reveals himself to be ontologically confused: he has mistaken what is non-self-explanatory (known through other things) to be something self-explanatory (known through itself). In pointing this out to the false reasoner, one is not just pointing out a tactical psychological misjudgment by the questioner. It is not simply that the questioner falsely thought that the original point is placed under the guise of a semantic equivalent, or a logical equivalent, or a covering universal, or divided up into exhaustive parts, would be more persuasive to the answerer. Rather, the questioner falsely thought that a non-self-explanatory fact about the world was an explanatory first principle. For Aristotle, that certain facts are self-explanatory while others are not is not a reflection solely of the cognitive abilities of humans. It is primarily a reflection of the structure of noncognitive reality. In short, a successful resolution of such a fallacy requires a firm grasp of the correct explanatory powers of things. Without a knowledge of which things are self-explanatory and which are not the reasoner is liable to find a question-begging argument persuasive.<ref name="Schreiber2003"/>|Scott Gregory Schreiber|''Aristotle on False Reasoning: Language and the World in the Sophistical Refutations''}}

[[Thomas Fowler (Oxford)|Thomas Fowler]] believed that {{lang|la|petitio principii}} would be more properly called {{lang|la|petitio quæsiti}}, which is literally {{gloss|begging the question}}.<ref name="Fowler145">Fowler, Thomas (1887). [https://books.google.com/books?id=WdtLAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA145 ''The Elements of Deductive Logic, Ninth Edition'']  (p. 145). Oxford, England: Clarendon Press.</ref>